unpacking

violence is much more than an art form,

it’s a way of life

passed from tongue to teeth to tender limb

like an electric shock

rattling and shattering, breathing in new life,

regurgitating exhaust

fumes and stale air, swollen memories of safety

and assurance, mixing

whole truths with well-intended lies, not the kind

you recite to blue uniforms

at late hours, but the kind that drip off your tongue

like honey or blood

pooling around your feet until they hold you in place

sticky sustenance

something that always comes up hollow, leaves

a funny taste lingering,

rotting in your mouth like ashes or pennies, raw

and coarsely metallic,

something to hold near to your chest to keep you

cold on warm nights

instill a permanent chill.

Whore

Now is the occasion to pay for our sins

We kept burying them under the guise of time

Oh don’t you know, it’s caught up to us?

Heaven’s falling and only I hear the sigh

The rhythmless singe of lost time

Dust off your books, your boots

Whichever one will get you further

Farther away, Father away

Mother Nature weeps despite

Her grave indifference

To spite your indifference

A grave dug up for the walking dead

In this unnatural and unreal city

And yet you still weep at the violet hour

I feel your fists flying at the violent hour

I feel your body steaming, emanating power

Man or machine, it matters not

Here I am nothing but a house

Rented space with conversion opportunity

Are you going to invest in me?

Or is the feudal system still intact?

Tell me, who owns this land?

hi(men)

they say you are a sum of your parts

but does that include those which have

been taken or that which was given away

how do you count back paces in the ink

of night to determine your ultimate value

must you put your body on display like a

fine china and allow esteemed men to

seek out cracks, determine your appraisal

place you on a temporary pedestal as

tiny pencil marks make scratches on paper

while hands reach into your ovaries to

pluck an egg from the stem of what it means

to be a woman, where you can pay the fee

in flesh before they cast you back into a garden

of your own making, into selva oscura singing

hallelujah, hallelujah—not a note left unsung.